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Subaru Nationals 2018 Recap

US41 Motor-Plex in Morocco Indiana was the home for the 3rd annual Subaru Nationals in 2018. The small town drag strip is plopped right in the middle of several huge corn fields, which was the perfect setting to play host to a bunch of snarling, ethanol-fueled Subarus from all across the country.

Each year the number of racers has grown and the cars get faster. The racing was segmented into 4 classes: Stock Turbo, Stock Location Turbo, Rotated Turbo, and Unlimited. The weather was perfect and the track prep was sticky, meaning the fans enjoyed a great day of competitive racing, a record-breaking run, and a few impressive exhibition passes from a couple of the fastest Subarus in the world!

Results:

STOCK TURBO

The winner of the stock turbo class was Samuel Breban Cruz. He made the short trip from North West of Chicago down to the Indiana corn fields and piloted his 2011 WRX to a 12.3 @ 109 mph in the final round.

STOCK LOCATION TURBO

Back 2 Back … Darius Warne defended his belt from 2017 by winning the Stock Location class again in his “4Warned” 2011 STI. The combo of P&L Motorsports, Prime Motoring, and JR Tuned have helped Darius push the limits of a stock location turbo build. His best time of the day was also his championship run, a quick 10.2 at 135. The runner-up was Caleb Streiler, whose car has proven 9-second performance, but he wasn’t quite able to run his best at nationals. Both cars are at at the bleeding edge of the stock location turbo setup and nipping at the heels of many cars in the rotated turbo class.

Rotated Turbo

Tim Herr’s 2003 WRX “Spool Bus” wasn’t the prettiest car at the strip, but it was one of the fastest and most consistent. It also provided one of the most entertaining championship drags I’ve ever seen. The final round was as close as it gets, the difference in ET’s was only a few thousands of a second! Tim got the jump at the light and took home first place with a 9.638 @ 147 while Nelson Azcue’s rally blue blob-eye was literally on his hip with a personal best 9.632 @ 149!

Graham Gaylord of Boosted Performance Tuning also deserves a special shout-out for an excellent tune. Tim’s car has been running over 40psi for 4 years on the same internals with no major issues.

Unlimited Class

In a class dominated by older GD chassis cars, John Paul’s Rev Works built 2016 STi showed that the new kids on the block can hang with anyone and look clean in the process. The most impressive detail is that this was the cars dragstrip debut and Subaru Nationals was supposed to be a shakedown event. The car was purchased 6 months ago with an already impressive setup but over the last 4 months, it was rebuilt with the ultimate goal of trying to reach the rare 7-second realm. According to John, the car was on a very conservative 700whp tune. It wasn’t the fastest car in the class, but it was the most consistent, running multiple 9.7 ETs at over 150mph. Taking home first place probably wasn’t the goal coming in, but proving the strength of the car was, and sometimes that’s more important in an elimination-style event. The successful weekend should give them the confidence to start cranking up the tune to see what the car can really do. We’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on this car in the future.

New Record

9 Second FA20 WRXDavid Geiger and Kozmic Motorsports made the trip all the way up from Houston with a sneaky red 2018 WRX. I heard some rumors that it might be making some big power but wasn’t sure how much. When the car pulled up to the far lane for the first qualifying pass of the day. I asked the driver what kind of time he expected to run, he replied with a mischievous shrug, then proceeded to blast down the track at 139 mph and across the line in 9.8 seconds, a new record for the FA20 WRX platform!

8 Second Monsters

Three of the fastest Subaru on the planet were in attendance. The P&L Motorsports car was dressed to impress with a new and improved look compared to 2017 and laid down an improved time as well. The car set the fastest pass of the day of 8.4 sec at 169mph! Also, the famous White Bullet STi traveled all the way from Puerto Rico. Neither car was competing in the official races but still, put on a nice show for the fans.

The White Bullet made it’s way to the tree a few times and had there been an award for the loudest car at the event, I’m sure it would have won. Unfortunately, they were never able to complete a full clean pass. We didn’t get to see everything she had, but the car was impressive to see nonetheless. On one pass, the driver had to lift just after the 1/8th and still coasted to a 9.3. So we still got a little taste of what a 7 second STi can do.

The internet’s own C.J. Synak and his hawkeye had plans to win the unlimited class, but a failed axle prevented that from happening. It was still a rewarding weekend for the “V8 Bait” crew as CJ managed to get the car back to the line in the test’n’tune sessions and produce the only other 8-second pass of the day.